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Trash Art
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Our trash and rubbish says a lot about us. What archeologists have known and studied for years, artists have only just discovered this century-- which is precisely what this exhibition is all about. "Trash, when garbage becomes art..." is an extensive and varied collection, creatively and wittily compiled by top Italian art critic Lea Vergine. It was held in Trento and Rovereto at the end of 1997.
On one hand, the exhibition mirrors our civilization: its alienation, consumerism, and apocalyptic character. On the other, it embodies the excitement and sense of freedom generated by the artistic use of the very things cast off and abandoned by society.  It is a sharp contrast to its recently restored palatial venue. The Palazzo delle Albere was built in the 1530s, primarily intended as a recreational facility for the court. The palazzo therefore has all the characteristics of a fortress, which accounts for the robust martial aire that accompanies the structure's elegant details. Many of the frescos which once decorated the interior of the palazzo have unfortunately been lost. Among the surviving works is a frieze depicting the 12 months through agricultural allegory on the first floor, while the second floor is graced by a series of more substantial renaissance frescos, showing architectural fantasy and trompe l'oeil which open onto imaginary landscapes dotted with castles and ruins. The only frescos whose paternity is certain are those representing the four cardinal virtues, found in the north-east tower. They were most certainly executed by the Veneto-born Marcello Fogolino, known to have worked in Trento between the years of 1520 and 1540. No visit to the palazzo would be complete without taking a look at the permanent collection, comprised of some 1,700 pieces of sculpture, paintings, drawings and woodcuts from the 1820's to today.
Palazzo delle Albere in Trento  Trash is what remains -- the absolute physical essence and the purely corporeal of anything and everything. This attribute is immediately clear upon entering the Palazzo delle Albere. Visitors are greeted by a wall by Fabio Mauri, constructed by suitcases reminiscent of Staten Island immigrants; a precarious and irritating mass confronting the viewing public.
There are also in the exhibition works from the "Sacchi " (old juta cloths pierced, sewn, painted and then scorched) by Alberto Burri, a contemporary artist from Umbria, died in 1995, works by Lucio Fontana (1899 - 1986), abstractionist painter and sculptor who created the artistic current of "Spatialism", employing traditional tecniques and also miscellaneous materials (paints, lacquered woods, plastic, waxmic, paper, tinfoil). The famous canvases of ravaged paper by Lucio Fontana are not far from Mario Merz's river of daily newspapers. Contrary to the current fascination with disposable objects destined for the waste bin after a single use, many common items were once reused hundreds of times. This perpetuation of waste is countered by the museum's enormous Joseph Beuys shrine, where the artist, in a maniacal effort to preserve the past, has canned paper, rags and a red broom.
 The second part of the Trash exhibition, located in Rovereto, is centered around the first decade of the 1900's. Braque and Picasso incorporated bits of paper from everyday life into their cubist paintings, exalting collage compositions. Since its inception, Futurism has expressed itself in language which repudiated traditional and academic materials. A 1914 collage work by Carlo Carrą, "Rapporto di un nottambulo milanese", makes use of various kinds of paper: blank and cut into squares and pentagrams. Working in this vein, Umberto Boccioni, Ardengo Soffici and Christian Schad created a new type of sculpture by working refuse into relief pieces. The dadaists on the other hand, wanted to toy with discarded items, a splendid example of this being the measuring tape which Francis Picabia reworked into a tree in 1924.
Demonstrating a dedication to the absurd, an unholy urge to laugh out loud, to move and create in the sphere of anti-art, this is a significant collection, and it is the first of its kind dealing with the rehabilitation of the old and ugly. "Trash, quando i rifiuti diventano arte"("Trash, when garbage becomes art...") Palazzo delle Albere, Trento Phone: 0461-986588 Archivio Storico del Novecento, in Rovereto Phone 0464-438887. |
